Life: Idiotropic

Surprises happen here.  Though Spain's Constitution is younger than me, life has been going on here since before Christ's birth and so, as with any old country, little treasures just appear here and there without warning.  Today was one of those treasure hunts, a drive without a destination really... just an idea that turned out to be better than expected.

Santi is my informant.  He's the ever cheerful boy behind the counter at my favorite coffee shop, the enabler of my caffeine addiction and the pusher of all things sweet that I must try because it's something new.  He's also my local font of knowledge.  Santi knows things.  He told me about Albarracin and Navajas.  Then he told me about Montanejos.  So away we went today knowing that Santi woudn't steer us wrong.

The drive up the A-23 is easy until you exit.  My GPS tells us we're almost there, but between us and Montanejos is a up and down twisty turny stomach churning mess of a road though a gorgeous landscape.  The landscape makes the uneasy stomach worth it as do the little fountains on the side of the road like this one that are just there seemingly in the middle of nowhere where people can come and fill up their bottles and jugs with clean, fresh, ice cold water for free.

Montanejos is a small village known for the warm mineral springs that surround it.  A spa town, there is an abundance of senior tourists there partaking in the therapeutic/healing baths.  In fact, I walked into what was labeled as a tourist office to find a the staff behind the counter wearing white lab jackets and calling forth the "patients" from the waiting room to go have their treatments.  The "tourist" area was a tiny counter off on the side with brochures behind glass.

From some of the regal homes now sitting in disrepair, it is evident that the town once enjoyed a bit of prosperity.  I crossed the bridge over the clear shallow water  of the Mijares river to see a school of large fish swimming below.  They seemed tame and we wondered why no one was fishing for them.  Are they edible?  Are they protected?  I asked an older man who was crossing the bridge.

Well into his 80's, he didn't want to answer my questions, but did want to talk.  "My life is a mystery," he repeated several times telling me about his time in the War and his illness and his cure, how there used to be four big orchards on the hill and the city was wealthy once.  He even talked about his first bicycle and the first motor car in town.  But as much as I love to talk to locals and to learn, it was so hard to understand him.  It could have been his dialect or his slurred "old person" way of speaking, but I only got about 60% which was ok, but not enough.  Too many details lost.


This house was my favorite.  Three stories in front with a nice patio, an old lady swept it while her cat watched from below the table.  She had beautiful flowers growing from pots and a neat row of fruit trees growing along the path from her home to the street.  The back became four floors and overlooked the fields and the pretty río Mijares.

The old city center is the typical maze of tiny streets and sandwiched homes that is typical of old Spanish towns.  These creep up the hill as well and, also typical, small gangs of stray cats hang out at dead ends and street corners.  Five call this covered tractor home.

The bridge leading from the town to a path that leads up the mountain to an old castle ruin was built in 1803 over what was then the Montan river.  Now a dry bed, the bridge still stands connecting the two hills.  It's called the San Jose Bridge-Aquaduct because a small irrigation channel within takes water to the small pueblo of La Alqueria nearby.  Two ceramic panels in the center show paintings of the Virgen of the Dispossessed on one and San Jose on the other.

We crossed it considering briefly to continue up the hill to the castle, but the sign said that it was a 2 hour walk.  A nice couple from Madrid chatted a while.  They said it wasn't far, but the climb was very steep.  Neither of us continued.

Hunger isn't a problem in Spain if you're flexible.  People complain about the rigid hours and yes, it's true that restaurants don't open for lunch until 2:30, but if you're happy with some tapas or a sandwich, then you can eat nearly any time of day.  So, hungry, we sat at the bar at the hotel with a continual ebb and flow of senior citizens through the doors.  Good coffee and a great sandwich.  Cheap and good.  I don't remember what my sandwich was called, but it had steak, ham, and caramelized onions on it making it moist, flavorful, and delicious.  The perfect midday snack for me.

Thanks to Google Maps, I knew that there was something pretty somewhere around the town, but I didn't exactly know where.  Thankfully, I am now technologically armed with my iPhone so that even out in the middle of the Spanish nowhere I can get a fabulous map of exactly where I am and exactly where I am going.

We headed NW on the CV-20 towards a big lake, the Embalse de Arenos.

Just a short bit up the road we saw a place to pull off. This was the first of many and a lesson well learned that along this route, at least, if there is a small widening of the road where you can park, then park because there will be something amazing there even if it's not readily apparent.

There's a small green sign there that says "La Fuente de los Baños"with a scribble of graffiti over it.  A little trail leads down the hill and a small side on the side of it points to where Arab baths were in the 13th century.  At the bottom of the hill we saw the fountain, the rock walls, and a shallow pool of crystal clear aqua water.


A group of men swam and posed while a girl on the rocky beach took pictures.  A mid-70's man swam laps back while his wife read in the sun. 






It's November, but these waters come from a natural thermal spring that remains at 25 ºC all year.




Almost 150 years ago in 1863, these thermal waters were declared a public utility by a royal order.  It's not just a historic swimming hole.

The road elevates from here winding up the side of the mountain while the chasm below gets deeper.  There are no towns here, just dramatic views like this one just before a tunnel.  This is another little turnoff just after a dam where we saw nothing but the tunnel ahead and the tops of trees, but we stopped anyway, walked to the edge and saw this:  Dramatic rocky faces, tiny waterfalls, and an aqua stream.















 

Another dam a few miles ahead reveals the beautiful Emblase de Arenos, the lake created by a dam built here in 1977.  Though the dam is recent, the village beyond it isn't.  From here we could see the ruin of an old Arab castle on the hill and a sign nearby told us that the first civilizations here began between 225-205 B.C.

This village, Puebla de Arenoso, is the first in a string of quaint mountain villages strung along the tiny highway from here to the A-23.  Some of the villages are nothing more than a tight collection of houses clumped together on either side of the road.  Many homes look so run down that only a small kitchen light and a newer car in front give them away from my first assumption that they're abandoned ruins.  It's a different life here where people rely more on themselves growing what they need and using the elaborate water systems set up here centuries ago that deliver fresh cold spring water all year. 





We drove through Los Cantos, La Monzona, Caserto las Lucas and Los Ibanez Bajos as the road began to climb towards Olba.  Here we're going through a valley with picturesque towns creeping down the hill into the valley below, a little stream running through the center with tall aspen trees on either side whose golden leaves are floating on the wind like lost feathers.




In Olba we stopped to see the cemetery there, a typical Spanish cemetary encircled by a stone wall.  Inside are only walls of boxes carved with the name and date, inset on some with a photo and with others a vase for flowers fresh or plastic.  They're very clean and stark here in comparison to the old French cemeteries with the crumbling carved headstones from eons ago.

Just past Olba where the river Rubielos meets Mijares, is this dramatic view and a small turnout just past.  Here are two aquaducts, the older from the middle ages and the newer finished in 1905 and still functioning today to help transport water throughout the chain of villages in this valley.  A path leads behind it to a tiny little paradise, as tranquil as it is picturesque with clear reflective waters and this tiny "Fountain of Health" nearly hidden under a rocky overhang.











This herder has 300 goats with him and two dogs.  We chatted a bit while his goats grazed, then he moved to cross the street and let his dogs go to work.  It was a symphony of bleats and the clank of metal bells.  Undisciplined children are these hiding in bushes and eating everything in sight.  Even when I thought all the goats had gone by, the man made a curt sound to his dog who took off into the bushes and flushed out 10 more goats several with long strands of green vine hanging out of their mouth.

They aren't for milk which surprises me.  I've seen a lot more goat cheese than goat meat on the menus.  Not true for sheep who share equal billing on menus with their cheese.

The sheep were controlled by a couple with their two dogs, but they only watched us as we watched them and weren't available to chat.

Yet another great day worth repeating with more time... water, old villages, and farm animals!  You can't get much better than that.

What to do when you've had your cake and still have an hour+ to "kill" before picking up the girls from school and having more cake before going to guitar?  (My secret to happiness = cake and good coffee)

Talk a walk.  (Which is why I won't wear all that cake and good coffee.)

Where?  Eh.  It doesn't matter.  We're in Spain where in every village, even the boring ones, you can find something just a bit strange.  And that strange is what's interesting and kind of fun.

So, we picked the village nearby with the funny name that is hard to pronounce without instruction.  Albuixech.  (Al-Buey-Shek)  Emphasis on the "xech."

It's small and relatively unexciting as Spanish villages go.  Running along the train tracks to Valencia, it's a cluster of buildings surrounded by fields filled mostly with artichokes and partially with tiger nuts and other random things.  But it's a sunny day and we're stuffed from tapas at El Pito, so a walk is the aleviator of guilt, the hail Mary to my culinary trespasses of which, with company in town for 10 days, there are far to many to count.  Better walk farther.

I took oh, 50ish photos which isn't many.  But it was still cool.  This little chapel has a Biblical scene painted onto tile under each cross that lines the courtyard wall.  It was closed, but the yard was open to see.   It was actually sort of false advertising because this first thing was saw in the village was by far the prettiest.  Figures.

Next is the typical farming village view:  Old man in horse drawn cart.  I'm a bit disappointed though.  Just yesterday I saw an old man sitting tall in a white plastic lawn chair in his cart, but was driving and couldn't take the picture.  He was far funnier.  This guy was just cute in that old man cute kind of way.

Next we found the Casa de Cultura found in nearly every village where children and adults can learn music and art.  This one had a large dome on top that looked like some sort of astronomical thing - an observatory or something.  The building had a nice garden with this date palm heavy with immature dates.  The white triangular house is a barraca, a traditional farm house in these areas that would have been thatched originally.  And, finally, a new use for old CDs - to scare away birds.


The most fun I had on this walk was at the end.  I've decided that you can't properly do the "stretch-out-your-arm-and-click" style self portraits with a large bulky camera, and since I'm a bit of a control freak with my camera anyway, the chances of actually having photos of myself when I'm quite a bit older and wrinkled to look back upon wistfully are pretty slim. 

Thus, my new plan for self-portraits - the shadow portrait!  It works well in Spain where there's quite a bit of sun and there's no need for air brushing if I'm having a bad skin tone day!   :)

Autumn has arrived in Spain.  In Valencia it's evident in the orange spheres covering the trees.  Amazing how quickly it happens that these sweet fruits go from nearly invisibly to painting the countryside in orange.  With so many citrus though, there aren't many deciduous trees littering the towns here.  It's harder to find fall by traditional definitions.

Not in Bejis.  I took dad and Angie here today for a quick trip to drive through the Spanish countryside and enjoy a different kind of travel.  The perfect contrast to two weeks in Paris are these rolling hills and terraced olive groves.  In Bejis we stopped by the old aquaduct, then pulled off to take pictures of the valley below this mountain topped town.  (I use the term "mountain" loosely.)




Los Cloticos was a quick jaunt just long enough to get our toes wet and catch this rainbow in the spray that was a full arch just too long to get in my frame with the rocks hiding the ends on either side.


There are signs of autumn here.





Even in the water where the currents sweep the fallen leaves into patterns and some float like tiny vessels.
It was a quick trip, but at just an hour away, even a few minutes there is worth it.  The drive is beautiful and the place itself quite magical.  Even better, at this time of year, it's absolutely silent with just the gurgle of the water and the rustle of the trees to keep you company. 

 See the man?  That's my dad discovering for himself just how thin a driveway can be.  That little edge of pavement is the top of a sliver of driveway that plunges down to a farm house 60 meters below.  He wouldn't believe it was a driveway.  "No way!  It's too small!  No one could get down that!!"  And just at the perfect time as if on cue, a man and his wife came driving up their driveway there, smiled as the crazy American's photographing it, and drove away.  A little tractor followed with a dog trotting along side it.  At the top he stopped, nodded to the dog, the dog jumped on the back, and away they went.

Leaving early now... sick stomachs reign this week in my house.  Tiara needs to be picked up from school, so we'll leave Bejis, drop her at home, then head to lunch.

Because you never seen the same thing exactly the same way.  Or at least I don't.  My camera dictates the size of my purse and it is my faithful companion keeping me busy in even the dullest moments.

Today wasn't dull.  Today I was on a mission to help Angie shop.  Well, I didn't say it was a difficult mission. 

And it was a bit fun because I was guided not only by shopping, but by food.  We headed first to my favorite Bar Cafe Mundo for a calamari sandwich and a cafe con leche, the perfect mid-morning snack if you're living in Spain.  Sandwiches aren't proper lunch food.  They are only snack food. 

Saw these two guys on horseback being quite smiley. Too bad the sun was in a bad place.  I've only seen police on horseback in the gardens here and they seemed just as entertained by me as I was by them.

Took a long leisurely walk to the Turia after our snack to find the mall with three Desigual shops, one of my favorite Spanish brands.  The mall actually only has two.  One is a double-wide store, so counts as two spaces.  Both are fantastic and full and so horribly tempting, but I did escape with only a few Christmas gifts for the girls and nothing for me because everything that I wanted was a bit too much.

Walked around the Valencia's City of Arts and Sciences for the umpteenth time which is ok, because like the Eiffel tower, it absolutely never loses it's charm or awe-power.  Anyone with any imagination of love for the camera could spend days there staring at it and imagining it at all sorts of different angles and in different lighting.  The buildings are astounding.


It's amazing how quickly a day can fly just walking and soaking up sun and beauty.  Snapped this window walking back towards the train station.  It's typical here to have a window behind the bar so that people can walk up to the outside of the cafe and grab something quick or stand there right on the sidewalk and have a coffee there.  There's seating inside as well, but people seem to like this.

Our day ended with ice cream at my favorite little place near the train station serving home made ice cream nearly all year round. 

All I knew is what I saw so prominently displayed from a distance.  The tall bell tower rising up from a little hill with another hill extending upwards housing what little remains of an old castle.  Then the drop.  To where, we weren't certain, but assumed correctly that it must fall to the river Palancia, a thin turquoise green ribbon that springs from Bejis and winds all through the Sierra Calderona.

So today, we went there.  Just 20 minutes from my house up the V-23, Jerica is the perfect day trip when you're tired of the sea and need a new landscape.  Parking on the outskirts of the town isn't difficult, so we found a spot near that big yellow house and began our walk into the town, past a busy corner and across the street onto the mound, the tightly packed hill that contains the cities oldest homes.

Here the streets wind narrowly up to the top.  There is no hurry since no car can speed here.  Pedestrians amble freely until they hear a car, then squish themselves flat along the thread of a sidewalk to allow the car to go by.  It's a quiet day.  The houses are all stuck together as they often are here most standing three stories tall and differing from their neighbor by a slightly different shade of pastel and a different colored shutter.  It doesn't take long to get to the top, which we did, to find that though the hill didn't look that high, the wind in this river valley roars with such force that we were walking at a forward slat around half the tower, then were pushed into a run 'round the backside.

Jerica's Mudejar bell tower sits upon a platform of Roman origin, though no one knows exactly when it was built.  The tower itself was proposed in 1614 when the city council decided that the bells couldn't be heard from all points in the town.  The tower was completed in 1622 and the bells moved.  It cost 1,775 libras.  The bells that ring from the tower now aren't quite as old.  They two oldest are from 1802 and 1790 and are named Santa Agueda and La Virgen.  The former weighs 2600 kilos.

Near the entrance on one side lies a tiny little street full of flowers.  Three homes face each other seeming to battle over who has the most flowers.  The best is absolutely adorable.  With terracotta pots both on the ground and fastened to the exterior walls and window boxes oveflowing with geraniums, it looks like something out of a fairy tale.  A tiny old lady emerged, so I complimented her on the array.  "My son did all this," she said.  Then she began to tell me how beautiful this town is on a sunnier, warmer day.  She also told me about the path near the river and the waterfalls below.  We talked for at least 5 minutes.  Could have been 10.  People are very friendly in Jerica.  Given enough time, we probably would have shared a coffee.

Around the corner is a tiny playground flanked on both sides by enormous fig trees heavy with overripe fruit.  From there it's easy to spy the path that leads to the top of another hill.  This is where we went next, to another windy spot so blustery, that my dad put Elise and Luci into the mouth of the remaining castle tower worried that they'd blow right off the mountain if left alone.

It was here that my darling youngests discovered and collected old bones, excited and thrilled by their discovery, shoving them in the faces of all who were and were not so interested.  "Oh, how wonderful!  Old bones!"  Blech.

Angie and Arianna stood at the bottom of the hill.  The rest arrived here.  This was the safe house for the littles while dad and I walked to the back and nervously watched each other as we took turns creeping slowly to the edge to look over and take a few photos.  The drop would have been scary enough without the wind, but with it, I moved slowly and crouched low holding onto the rocks so I wouldn't be blown over.  This is where you can see the river approach, skirt around, then continue down some falls and into the orchards in the valley below.


Wild pomegranates grow here as do praying mantis.  We watched this guy walk across our path, then we held him up precariously on a stick to try to get a closer picture.



Old Spanish towns are just cute.  The thread width roads and white painted buildings, the terracotta pots and paint peeling doors.  It all lends to a certain charm that I haven't tired of.  This village also had these funny stacks of pumpkins in several windows that I've never seen before.  I suppose with the cool air, this is the perfect storage space to keep them fresh, but doesn't allow for much a view.

This house had created a mosaic around each arched window and its doorway with old broken tiles of all colors.  Apparently this is the street to avoid if you lack the green thumb. Each tiny courtyard here is lined, green spilling out of clay pots of all sizes.  Even within the tiny room on the right inside the old abandoned tower, someone is keeping beautiful green plants healthy and alive.

Just to the left of this are two small adjoining courtyards and a little water pump.  All of these flowers are cared for by the tiny little lady in the photo below.  I talked to her too and she told me to return in the spring when the colors are much brighter and the flowers are flowering more.  She proudly told me that she had planted all the flowers in that area and all the ones lining the street down to the end of her house, a house that she was born in over 70 years ago, where she grew up and where her own children were born.  She loves Jerica and says that people return every year to ski in the nearby hills and attend the many cultural festivals.  Just to the right of her house is a little plaque showing that this street won the "most beautiful street" award in 1994.  I'm not surprised.








These tiny plant lined streets led to the church where some famous guy was born just facing it.  At this point we were all getting a bit tired and hungry which is why I didn't care at the point who the famous guy was.  His picture is on the wall in tile with his name.  Wasn't anyone I knew.  ;)

The door of the church is made of gold colored punched metal.  It's extremely detailed all the way down to the key hole covers and fancy door knobs.





The old city was created in three phases.  The oldest part began with the castle an only extended to the top of the hill.  Another phase built a wall halfway around the hill and in the final phase, another defensive wall was built at the base.  Even now, the hill remains divided in those original rings with the buildings stuck together and wall connecting the open parts with just arched doorways here and there to allow people through.  There are fun surprises at every corner like tiny covered passageways with half-timbered ceilings that lead to miniascule courtyards with laundry hanging to dry.

We ended up here near where we started famished and ready for food.  There's a "real" restaurant up the street, but this little bar was good enough.  We sat outside under a tree where a bird decided to decorate one jacket while we enjoyed our lunch of pork and fries for some, omelets for others, and a couple of really quite delicious beef sandwiches.  Not beef like roast beef or steak, but a thinly sliced steak about 1/4" thick cooked and placed on a roll with sauteed onions.  Good.  Simple, but good.

Instead of heading directly home I thought I'd try to find the river that the lady on the hill told me about.  I went the wrong way and ended up driving in the middle of nowhere on a very tiny little road until turning around and trying again.  Then, I drove up a road past an old communal laundry with a large stone tub of water where I faced a road tinier than my van with a steep incline, but chickened out, made a thousand point turn, and left.  We found ourselves in a parking lot and discovered the trail head.  Large golden leaf trees bent low over a sequence of water falls and a stone path snaked along the mountain.  The gusting wind blew the leaves which lingered in the air as if they had taken flight on their own, nature's confetti.  Dad and I jumped out to take pictures.  We wanted to walk it, but it was cold... really bitterly cold with that wind and the rest of our party were already warm and deshoed in the comfort of my car.

Another wrong turn and scary retreat down a really steep narrow road and we were finally on our way home with just one stop for this view.

Jerica is beautiful.  With enough time, I'll definitely go back.